Ian Mallon: Irish expected to spend £100m at Cheltenham
NEARLY TIME: Runners and riders past the grandstand. Pic: David Davies/PA Wire for the Jockey Club.
IN JUST seven years, the financial impact value of the Cheltenham Festival has grown from £100m to almost £300m, newly released figures have revealed.
In its first economic impact analysis (EIA) since 2016 – Cheltenham Racecourse declared that the festival is now worth £274m to the local economy, with a third of that revenue likely to come from Ireland.
While the University of Gloucestershire report doesn’t identify racegoers by nationality it found that 33 per cent of attendees arrive in Cheltenham at least a day before the festival and leave at least a day after the final day’s racing.
These largely Irish visitors will join 274,000 punters in total for this year’s event where spending per head increased significantly in 2022.
Last year racegoers forked out approximately €800 each while attending the four day event - up from €650 in 2016.
The reasons given by those who were making their first trip to Cheltenham, showed that 67 per cent said it had been on their 'bucket list of things to do', with around half of those surveyed saying they 'always or usually attend' the festival.
Despite the extraordinary value of sport’s most generous spenders, festival organisers have reduced the capacity for this year’s event to 68,500 per day, due to congestion and complaints of overcrowding last year.
The analysis was compiled from an online survey managed by Cheltenham Racecourse using a questionnaire distributed to attendees, asking about their expenditure during the event.
Ian Renton, The Jockey Club’s Regional Managing Director for the West Region, said the figures demonstrated the “tremendously beneficial effect on the wider economy in the Cheltenham area”.
However, with such large numbers there has been some pushback from the local community due to behaviours of festival goers, resulting in a new campaign, ‘Love Our Turf’ - “to put engagement with and the needs of our local residents and businesses at the heart of the event”.
Dr Charles Afriyie, Senior Lecturer in Accounting at University of Gloucestershire, described the analysis as “fascinating to see how the festival has continued to grow, including its beneficial effect on the economy in the Cheltenham locality”.
Meanwhile, when it comes to staking at this year’s Cheltenham Festival, Flutter Ent. will expect to see approximately 35 million bets to be made by punters across its Paddy Power, Betfair and SkyBet brands during the week.
THE Football Association of Ireland has revealed that it’s tying up a number of new commercial deals for men’s and women’s football, marking a major change of fortune for the Association.
In comments to The Pitch, the organisation’s commercial director Sean Kavanagh said that in addition to a new kit supplier deal (expected to be with Castore), the FAI is close to announcing new partnerships for both teams.
Kavanagh, who has been in the role just six months, described the deals as “transformational in terms of monetary value” for the business.
It is not expected that the association is in a position to announce a headline partner for the men’s team, vacant since ‘Three’ decided to end to its 10-year relationship in 2019.
However, the highly optimistic forecast from Sean Kavanagh suggests that financial values are being restored at Abbotstown after an extremely challenging period for the association with up to €65m of inherited debt being managed.
“The FAI will announce a number of new commercial partners for both our men’s and women’s teams in the coming weeks,” he said in a statement released to this column.
“(These include) a new kit supplier deal that will be transformational in terms of monetary value for the Association.
“This is a very positive time for the Association in our dealings with existing and new partners and we thank them all for their commitment to Irish football across all levels of the game.”
With tickets all but sold out for the France Euro 2024 qualifying opener in the Aviva Stadium on March 27, the months ahead are eagerly anticipated across the FAI, with a key rebranding of the organisation underway.
This summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is set to mark an extraordinary uplift in attention on football as the WNT embarks on its first-ever major competition, something not far from Kavanagh’s thoughts.
“We continue to plan for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup with our partners in football for women and girls, namely Sky, Nissan, Carlsberg, Cadbury, DHL and Aviva, all of whom have exciting activation plans for the period before and around the Tournament,” he added.
“And we will be announcing new sponsorships in this area before the team’s departure for Australia this summer.”
The significance of such comments from the FAI marks a welcome and communicative strategy from the organisation, and certainly gives an impression of a body in full transformation mode.
While Sean Kavanagh didn’t name Castore in his statement, the expectation is that the Newcastle United, England Cricket and McLaren Racing partner will be Ireland’s next kit provider.
The Pitch estimates that deal will be worth €2m annually to the association, in fees and in-kind supplies arrangements.
The new supplier will be formally announced in the coming days and will come almost five months after the FAI terminated a contract with JACC, which was due to run until 2026, due to uncertainty over the financial position of the company.
So who is Sean Kavanagh and why has his impact been so immediate in an organisation that was commercially paralysed before his arrival?
The Dubliner has built a strong career with various sports brands due to a number of roles across in Puma and Canterbury, as well as Pentland Brands which operates a suite of sporting apparel labels, including Berghaus, Ellesse, Speedo and Lacoste.
While the first six months have been highly productive for the former Stella Maris underage star, the remainder of the year and the establishment of a headline sponsor will go to building on that growing reputation.
IF YOU want to appreciate the immediate impacts of a strong F1 performance for a team and car manufacturer, look no further than the incredible lift in fortunes for Aston Martin.
Following Sunday’s impressive podium finish for Fernando Alonso and a sixth place for Lance Stroll, the value of the parent company – Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc surged by 13% once the markets closed in London on Monday.
The price of a share when the London Stock Exchange closed last Friday stood at £240 but then lifted to £276.10 by close on Monday – there was a small dip on Tuesday.
Certainly there are additional contributing factors for the lift, and the stock had been on the rise in the days leading up to Bahrain.
Part of the pre-race lift in values for Aston Martin comes down to a company announcement which declared success in meeting demand as supply shortage issues ease for the second half of the year.
Chairman and the largest shareholder of the company, Lawrence Stroll told Bloomberg that certainly the positive branding in F1 for Aston Martin is partly responsible for the increased values.
This is due to the ongoing growth of the youth market thanks to F1’s Social Media strategy since its acquisition by Liberty Media in 2016 and the extraordinary success of the Netflix Drive to Survive docuseries which has seen a doubling of audience by some estimates.
The Aston Martin performance is a microcosm of the success of the Liberty Media takeover, which has seen the value of F1 grow to $17.1 billion from an initial valuation of $4.4 billion, seven years ago.
